


Frank & Alice

by UnusuallyZealousBurgette



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Friends to Lovers, Hospital, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental facility, Mutual Pining, Oneshot, Protection, nonmagical AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-27 03:39:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13872324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnusuallyZealousBurgette/pseuds/UnusuallyZealousBurgette
Summary: Neville's parents have never been 'okay', but now that their conditions have worsened significantly he needs someone to be there with him. Draco just happens to be the one.





	Frank & Alice

**Author's Note:**

> Beta-ed by @InkSilver

Draco sat thumping his foot to the upbeat muggle song that played as he waited outside of the Leaky Cauldron. Sun beat down on the rusty car and shone through the windshield; it was Neville’s car, as he was supposed to be driving the man to see his parents after work in twenty minutes. He wanted to find some calm before they arrived. There weren't often pleasant visits, but he bore it all for Neville.

Draco’s reverie broke as the pop beat on the radio transferred to a slow piano melody. Draco reached forward and began fiddling with the radio dial, the signal transferring in and out between static and the occasional rap. He always had trouble finding something that he liked, that didn't resemble the annoying tunes he’d heard throughout childhood all too often.

As the radio landed on yet another empty, buzzing station, Draco noticed Neville sprinting towards the car. At first, he couldn't figure out what had sparked his excitement, but then he noticed a panicked look on his face and his haphazard steps.

“Drive!” Neville shouted. Draco jumped as the man slipped inside.

“What the bloody fuck, Neville, what’s happened? You're early- and where's all your stuff?” 

“Draco, I need you to drive! We have to go – they're in intensive treatment!”

Draco couldn't move for a moment as the static roared in his ears, before he pushed his own frothing emotions aside and thought of his friend. He turned the key and shoved his foot onto the gas pedal, barely pausing to signal before entering the stream of London traffic. The car moaned as he drove it through the muggle streets – but the traffic was unavoidable; lanes clogged with congestion, vehicles stuck hood-to-tailpipe in clouds of smoky exhaust.

Neville sat gazing out the window with his teeth clamped down on the tip of his thumb, leg fidgeting unconsciously. 

“Did they floo you?” Draco asked, trying to hide the overwhelming pain and worry in his voice, and failing, a slight waver evident in his words.

“No,” Neville’s voice mimicked that of a scared child. “They called, said Mum and Dad were in the ER and that they were taking care of him. Said they couldn't bloody well tell me anything over the phone either.” The man sniffed and scrubbed his face with the sleeve of his starched shirt.

“Oh.” Draco only felt more guilty now for bringing it up.

“Yeah.”

He pretended not to notice the way that dust swirled on the dashboard in front of Neville, as if at his command, or the how the radio kept switching between a fuzzy mariachi band and an infomercial selling sobriety pills.

The song cutting through the crackling noise caught Draco by the pliant ear and pulled him back in time. In his mind he could see airy red and green fabrics flapping in the wind, the day that they'd taken Alice and Frank out, back when they weren't getting worse. They’d visited a Cinco de Mayo festival one Saturday, in celebration of Alice’s birthday, which happened to fall around the same date of Alice’s birthday. There were colorful decorations all around, and the savory aroma of cooked beef wafted through the air as large-skirted women danced and the most beautiful sounding bands played. 

Draco remembered the unwavering smile on Neville’s face as Draco danced with his parents, following an intricate step, and the way that Alice had leaned into his ear and told him something he would never forget. She said she was thankful for that day and for him, even though she didn't know him. She told him that she was glad her son had someone like him because she couldn't be there for him herself. Then she lost all coherence and went back to spinning in circles with a man on stilts.

Those words had kicked something up in him; a realization that, as he watched Neville with that gorgeous smile on his face as he wiped powdered cheese from his lips, he felt something deeper for him. Some man had taken Neville by the arm and asked him to dance, and the sweet taste in his mouth turned sour, and he'd realized. Just realized.

But after that their conditions had only gotten worse, they knew they were meant to but kept hoping tbey would somehow end up fixed. Maybe that was why the nurses had let them take them out. 

Draco was drawn back to the present moment as Neville began shouting at the impatient woman behind them, and he wanted nothing more than to take him into his arms and comfort him, but, as a friend, that just wasn't his place. He kept driving.

When they arrived at hospital, there was no panic or rushing gurneys – it was hauntingly unaffected. 

Apparently, Alice was under intensive care for numerous injuries, but still no one knew what had happened to Frank, and all tests had proven futile. Frank had simply become angry that morning to the point of violence and attacked his own wife. The nurses and doctors had sedated him as soon as they had arrived on the scene and taken him from the ward immediately for testing and confinement as Alice was put under. Draco half wondered if the staff were starting to consider whether it was even worth it to keep them alive at this point.

They were taken to Alice’s room first. Neville leaned over his mother’s bed and caressed the red-purple scars across the frail woman’s face with a feather-light gentleness upon seeing her. He looked away as tears shone in his eyesonce more. His pain was so evident, it was difficult for Draco to standby and watch.

Her eyes were frozen open. Draco could imagine Neville, in the cloudy eyes of his mother, seeing his parents the way that he’d seen them throughout youth, the way he’d told Draco of – with hollow eyes that stared right through him; lost souls drifting somewhere in empty shells of human beings who used to be. Apparitions.

The doctor chattered behind them thoughtlessly, unheard, “She had a number of open scratch wounds on her face and still more up her arms that we disinfected stitched up, but those were the worst of her injurys. The bruises take time to heal, ain't nothing we can do ‘bout that.”

Neville stepped away from the bedside, saying in a flat voice, “I want to see my father.”

Frank Longbottom’s condition was much more serious than it appeared when they first saw him asleep in bed, his grey hair plastered across his damp forehead. Without much closer inspection, thick purple veins pulsed through pale, crepe paper skin under the flouresent lights. 

"You're allowed to touch him, but gently, so you don't wake him,” said the nurse, wringing her hands gently against her chest.

Neville turned with a questioning expression.

“He's not unconscious,” the doctor chimed in. “Just ‘sleep under a few sedatives.”

As the nurse and doctor left them alone, and Neville drew further into the room. 

“Dad?” he whispered, voice cracking. The lines on Frank’s heart monitor rising and falling like the slopes of mountains.

When Frank didn’t stir, Neville repeated himself, louder, his desperation spilling thorugh, “Dad?” 

Frank’s eyes parted like half-moons at this, and he shuddered awake, reaching an unhappy consciousness. As sentience hit him like a brick, he bucked wildly in the creaking hospital bed, and spit sprayed from his lips. 

Never before had Draco ever seen Longbottom act this way in the many times they'd come to visit. He was like a wild animal caught in cage, so full of raw anger; and Neville just stood there, tears running down his face. He willingly took the insults that spewed from his father's mouth.

“Get out! Get out, you horrible monster! You disgusting disgrace!” he shouted. “Die! Bloody die!”

“Dad,” Neville croaked.

“You bloody, filthy-” 

“Dad!” he shrieked, sobbing violently, a dam broken inside of him. “Dad, it's me! I'm your son!”

Draco’s heart clenched, and he called out, “Nurse!” Disregarding his better judgement, Draco rushed forward and wrapped his arms firmly around Neville, holding him close as the man sobbed.

The nurse and doctor swept into the room, wands aloft. The first man hit Frank with a temporary stunner as the nurse filled a syringe and stuck it into Frank’s pulse point. The crazed man’s eyes glossed over, and all that could be heard in the room was a low, rhythmic beat.

Neville turned in Draco’s arms to plant his face in the crook of his neck, hot tears streaming down his face. Draco just held him, rubbing slow circles into his shuddering back. He met the doctor and nurse’s gazes defiantly, as if daring them to comment.

The mediwizard wiped a hand down his face. “I'm real sorry - I thought it would be safe.”

“Is he going to be okay?” Draco asked.

“We’ll try the best we can to try an’ improve his condition."

It sounded more like a question.

The doctor then proceeded to say number of things that neither of them really heard as the nurse hastily left the room. He instructed them to meet him back downstairs where he would bring some papers for Neville to sign, and Frank slipped from the temporary sedation into a troubled sleep.

Draco reluctantly let his arms fall as the nurse and mediwizard left the room, releasing Neville, who turned away, watching his feet.

“I'm sorry you had to see that,” he whispered to his toes.

“Don't be,” Draco assured him. “Don't be sorry for me in any way.”

Neville sniffed and wiped his nose, gazing at Draco. “Thank you, for everything. I just hate that you have to see me like this – honestly, I wonder what I'd do without you.”

Neville reached out and grabbed Draco’s hand. Draco’s heart panged painfully, and he squeezed his hand back. They stepped towards each other, and their foreheads fell together.

Neville rested his head into the crook of Draco’s neck and his arms wound around his waist as tears began to fall again.

“I love you,” Neville murmured, the words nothing more than a blush on Draco’s pale skin. Draco froze.

Neville began to sob harder now. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry-”

Draco had to pull the man back as he shook feverishly. “Why are you sorry?”

“I shouldn't have said that, I shouldn't have sprung that on you, I shouldn't keep springing things on you...” 

“Neville,” Draco couldn’t suppress a smile, bittersweet but sweet nevertheless, “I – I love you too.”

Things wouldn't be okay, not for a while, but in that moment they were fine, and the storm calmed. And after they would continue fighting together. Draco knew he was in it for the long haul, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this fic please leave a kudos and comment telling me what you think, I'd really appreciate it!
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr @UnusuallyZealousBurgette.


End file.
